Aftermath
by purpleprose101
Summary: What do you do when you discover your best friend has a passion for devil-themed vigilantism? And what do you do when that friend is no longer around? Foggy Nelson's ordinary life was suddenly turned inside out - and now he's been left behind to pick up the pieces. But in Hell's Kitchen, things aren't always what they seem - and heroes never seem to stay dead. Post-Defenders.
1. Between Heaven and Hell

The man sitting in the confession booth gives an almost inaudible sigh, as if even he isn't quite sure how he got to this point. His blonde hair is uncharacteristically neat, complimented by a suit well tailored to (as his grandmother always phrased it) his _husky frame_.

"Forgive me father, for I have -" the next word comes out rusty, an old heirloom that hasn't passed through his teeth in quite a while - ". . . sinned."

He furrowed his eyebrows - math never was his strong suit, there's a very good reason he chose law school . . .

"What's eighteen plus six?"

Silence from the metal grate. In lieu of clerical assistance, Foggy works it out for himself.

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. My last confession was twenty-four years ago."

He sits with that for a moment, mulling it over. Twenty-four years.

"I stopped going to Church when I was thirteen. Convinced my parents I needed to spend Sunday mornings studying. They were never militant about it - I think they were happy to have one less kid to force into a suit and tie."

More silence.

"This is Father Lantom, right?" Foggy had a vague enough memory of his upbringing to know you weren't supposed to ask questions like that. He stared into the grate, like a convict awaiting the judge's sentence.

A short pause, and then: "Yes."

Foggy looked down at his hands, fingernails chewed and uneven. He twiddled his thumbs. It didn't help.

"I miss him."

There, he said it. No taking it back now. Another of his grandmother's saying floated through his brain - "Words are like toothpaste: once you squeeze them out, you can't put them back in." When he was six, he'd tried to prove her wrong - squeezed out a whole tube into the bathroom sink and spent ages trying to shove the stuff back in with a butter knife, bit by bit. It didn't work.

This is what his brain does when he's nervous, Foggy knows - distracts him with anecdotes, little bits and pieces of memories, tries to throw up as much imagery as possible to get him to stop dwelling on whatever unpleasant topic is at hand. A good defense strategy when you've got a guilty client.

"Is this Mr. Nelson?" Father Lantom had a wonderful voice. Soft, yet firm - comforting. Of course, that's to be expected - Matt loved him, didn't he, and Matt could never stand to be around annoying voices -

"Yes. It's . . . it's me." His own voice is not nearly as impressive. It sounds . . . unsure. Foggy never liked his voice very much. He never liked a lot of things about himself.

"It is not a sin to mourn the passing of a friend," Father Lantom said. "It is a very natural thing. It was almost six months ago, was it not?"

178 days, actually. Foggy wondered if Father Lantom was keeping as close a count as he was.

"Yes, six months. But . . ." Foggy had to be careful here - Lantom somehow knew of Matt's death, sure, but he probably didn't know the rest. "What if I could have saved him? What if I could have . . ."

He trailed off. Can't risk letting information slip. In the end, Matt's secrets ended up outliving him.

This pause was the longest yet. The confessions of Foggy's childhood didn't have so much silence. Stealing an extra dessert, playing hookie - life was simpler back then.

"Foggy, I knew about your friend's . . . activities. He was a man of a strict moral code, and I sincerely believe that you could not have dissuaded him from what he believed to be his duty." Lantom's words fell like stones. Despite his best efforts, a small flash of anger hit Foggy. He told his priest, he told Claire - how many other people did Matt decide to clue in before he told his business parter, his 'best friend', his -

He tried to quell it. This _is his priest. You know how Matt was about religion. Of course he told him._

"What if I'd got him help? Therapy? A psych ward? A - a jail cell?" Foggy cringed at those last words. "I know how it sounds. But isn't prison better than dead?"

This time, it is Father Lantom's turn to give a small sigh. It doesn't sound exasperated - it sounds tired. It sounds like the sigh of someone who, at some point, had asked himself the same questions. "From what I knew of Matthew, he would not have appreciated that sentiment. It is difficult for me to determine what happened, but from recent events, I suspect that he gave his life to save many others. That is a righteous thing to do."

"But I probably could've done something. Right? Something to - to stop him from . . . going out that day."

"The decision was never solely in your hands. Many others knew his . . . identity, too."

True enough. Claire, the weird old blind guy, those three other lunatics - somehow, thinking of all the people who were happy to let Matt do his thing didn't make Foggy feel any better.

Lantom paused. "But yes, I suppose so."

"OK." Foggy stared at the ceiling. The wooden bench he sat on was slightly worn down in the center, from all the penitents who had sat here over the years. He wondered how much time Matt had spent in this very position, agonizing over his past, his present, his future. Suddenly, the booth seemed awfully claustrophobic. "How many Hail Marys is that?"

It came out snarkier than Foggy intended, and he felt regret almost immediately. Despite his best efforts, he liked Lantom.

The elderly priest didn't seem to take offense. "I can assign you no penance for this specific grievance, simply because I do not believe you have committed a sin. Do you have any other confessions to make?"

"No." _Yeah, right._ But he had to be at the office in half an hour, and Foggy had a feeling 24 years of sins would take a little longer than that. Foggy moved to stand up, then paused.

"Do you think he went to Heaven?" he asked. "I mean, you know. If there is a Heaven." (He shouldn't have said that second part. Matt was always telling him he needed a better filter between his brain and his mouth.)

"That is in the Lord's hands, not our own." Here, Lantom's soft speaking voice gave way to something unyielding - something with more authority. A little more kindly, he added: "Matthew is at peace. Of that, I am sure."

Foggy wanted to believe that. He really did. But "Matt" and "peace" were two words that seemed odd in such close proximity.

He ducked out of the booth. The pews were as empty as they had been when he'd arrived - Thursday morning isn't exactly prime time for churchgoers.

The Devil of Hell's Kitchen, in Heaven. No, that was wrong. Matt belonged in Heaven, that was for sure - but Foggy couldn't shake the firm belief that the Devil belonged down under, and not in the Australian sense of the word.

Walking outside, the cool shadows of the church gave way to harsh winter light. Foggy squinted, eyes adjusting to the never-ending bustle of the city. He brushed invisible lint off his suit jacket, more out of habit than anything else. Heaven, Hell - he didn't think it mattered much. In the light of day, surrounded by honking taxis, the idea of an afterlife seemed very dubious. Matt was gone - not floating around on a cloud somewhere, but really, truly, profoundly gone.

Six months. And what everyone said about loss was wrong. It hadn't gotten any easier.

He missed him.


	2. Miller Lite and White Russians

With his salary at Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz, Foggy could have his pick of whatever fancy bar he wanted after hours - certainly, most of his colleagues headed to the more pricier establishments Manhattan had to offer. But in reality, there was only ever going to be one place for Foggy to buy his cheap beers after a long day. He may have abandoned his Catholicism, but there was no way in hell he was ever abandoning Josie's.

Not that Josie would care if he did. She was a woman of few words, and most of them wouldn't be allowed on cable TV.

Of all the people he'd had to invent an alibi for Matt's sudden disappearance - clients, landlords, co-workers - Josie had never asked what had happened to 'that blind friend of yours'. She must have just assumed that when Nelson and Murdock split, Matt started frequenting a different establishment. Or maybe she never even noticed.

She turned to him, looking as exasperated as always. "Yeah?"

"Just a beer, thanks," said Foggy. He glanced at the door. It was 9 pm; the person he was waiting for was never late. Sure enough, the door swung open, and Karen walked in.

"Hey." She sat down next to him, both of them in the same rickety barstools they always chose, and turned to order. "White Russian, please."

"Josie makes White Russians?" asked Foggy. "And here I am, a pleb with my Miller Lite."

Karen ran a hand through her fair hair. She was dressed in a light blue blouse and a black pencil skirt - a quintessentially Karen Page outfit. "I'm trying to expand my drinks repertoire. No offense to Miller Lite, but it tastes a little like water."

"Positively communist! Miller Lite is an All-American product, made with eagle tears and freedom juice." Foggy took a swig, then pulled a face. "Besides, it tastes like horse-urine, not water."

"Very funny." The White Russian arrived, and Karen put down her purse. A newspaper was sticking out; it looked old. "I have something to talk to you about, actually."

"Oh?" Foggy and Karen usually had things to talk about. They talked about the always-intriguing exploits of Jeri Hogarth, or the latest infuriating thing Mitchell Ellison said. They talked about what paint colors would work best in Karen's kitchen, or why Foggy was definitely going to start that diet of his, but maybe next week. They talked about politics and family and pet projects.

The unspoken rule: they didn't talk about Matt. Not this early in the night, anyway. A few drinks in was another story. After a while, even Josie must've wondered what made those two regulars weepy so often.

Talking about him or not, Matt was still there - especially here, in Josie's. He was in all the silences, all the natural breaks in conversation. He was in the way Karen looked at the pool table, the way Foggy swallowed whenever another customer happened to order a "bourbon, neat". He was the reason that Foggy's attempts at jokes didn't make Karen laugh like they used to. He lingered.

Karen brushed her fingers against the newspaper. "It's about Matt."

She always was one to break the rules.

"I haven't even finished one beer yet," said Foggy. "Usually we work our way up to this, don't we?"

"No, no - not like that. I was looking through the archives yesterday, and I . . . found something." She pulled out the newspaper, crinkly and yellowed.

Foggy sighed. "Karen, I - I thought you'd gotten past this. He's gone. The building - he was in the basement when it fell. The rubble's been paved over. I know you think it'll be like, like Frank Castle all over again, but he's -"

"I know." She blinked quickly a few times, eyes wet. "He's dead. I _know,_ Foggy. This isn't about that."

Across the room, someone screwed up an easy pool shot; the crowd around the table burst out laughing. Karen closed her eyes for a brief second, then continued.

"What do you know about Matt's mother?"

The question took Foggy aback. "His mom? She died when he was a baby. It was just him and his dad."

"That's what I thought. But then I found this."

The paper was dated 1984; Karen pointed to a small picture in the corner, a group of five nuns. The story was something about a food drive. Foggy squinted.

"And?"

Karen's eyes bored into his skull. "Read the names."

"Rosalind O'Connor, Julia Anderson, Margaret Murdock -"

"I remember him mentioning her once - her name was Maggie, wasn't it? Well, that's short for Margaret."

"Oh, come on." Foggy's gaze shifted between the photo and Karen's hopeful face, like he was expecting a punchline. "You know how many Margaret Murdocks there are in this city? New York probably has more Irish names than Ireland does. And besides, nun's can't, you know . . ."

Karen raised her eyebrows, mouth twitching into something that, in the old days, may have turned into a smile.

". . . have kids," Foggy finished lamely.

"You're right. But I was curious, so I did some digging online. There wasn't much - but I found a blog post. By the Clinton Mission Shelter - that's the same group that did the food drive." She pulled out her phone and turned it towards Foggy. "It's from 2014 - about another fundraiser they did, one to end mob violence."

She read from the screen; the website looked like the designer had gone into a coma circa 1995.

" _The project is headed by Margaret Murdock, who has been with the Shelter since the 1980s. For Murdock, the fundraiser is personal - before she took her vows, she was married to Jack Murdock, an esteemed boxer who was one of the many casualties of the mob presence in Hell's Kitchen._ "

She scrolled down the page; there was a picture below - a nun, her face lined with wrinkles. She zoomed in on it, and Foggy's stomach flipped. The pale Celtic skin, the raven hair peeking out of the habit, the piercing blue eyes. It was almost surreal, seeing Matt's eyes not staring off into space, but focused intently on the camera.

"Holy shit."

"I know. She looks just like him, right?" Karen was trying to stay casual, but her inner journalist was coming out.

Foggy sighed. He had no inner journalist. The Miller Lite can in his hand was regrettably empty, and as he stared down at its cheery blue label, a familiar sensation crept up on him.

"How much stuff do you think he lied to me about?"

"Fog, you shouldn't look at it like that -"

"He told me she was dead. That he was an orphan. I hate this feeling, this feeling of being _played_ by him -"

"He still was an orphan," Karen said definitively. "Living in an orphanage makes you an orphan. He might not have even known she was alive."

"I guess." He glanced back at the picture on Karen's phone. Margaret Murdock looked . . . kind. Grandmotherly, almost. "So . . . what if he does have a mom?" ( _did_ , he reminds himself. Past tense. Now and forever.) "We can't exactly give him the good news."

"She's his _mother_. If they were in contact, she'll be wondering where he's gone. And even if he wasn't . . . doesn't she have a right to know?"

Foggy raised his eyebrows. "That her son was the Devil of Hell's Kitchen?"

Karen looked down at her White Russian. She hadn't touched it. "That he was a hero," she said quietly. "And that he's . . . gone."

Foggy gave her a sidelong glance; something else was going on here. He resisted the urge to cross-examine the witness. Karen had a big heart, sure, but it wasn't just about being a do-gooder. She didn't want the story of Matt to be over. She wanted something left behind, something to cling onto. He understood that.

He looked back at the picture. At those eyes. Yes, he understood completely.

"You want to visit her?"

"Maybe," she said. "I mean, it would be better to tell her in person."

Foggy leaned back in his seat, trying to catch Josie's eye. One beer wasn't going to cut it tonight. "OK. When are you free?"

Karen grinned. It was a real grin, heartfelt and unreserved. Those were a rarity for both of them in these past 6 months. "When are you?"


	3. Tea and Biscuits

Foggy had done a lot of stupid things in his 37 years on Earth. He knew this, because he kept a running tab in his head of the worst offenders - a list his brain was happy to read out to him on sleepless nights. Trying to swallow a cherry tomato whole at age 9; nearly every encounter with a human being of the female persuasion during his teenage years; hitting the bars to celebrate taking the LSATs the night before he actually took them.

And, of course, chief among the Stupid Things: letting his best friend go out and get crushed under a couple hundred thousand tons of concrete.

That was a big one.

As they approached the Clinton Shelter, he had a feeling what they were about to do was going to be list-worthy.

"This is a bad idea."

Karen didn't respond. She walked a half-step ahead of him, eyes intently focused on the large wooden door. It took a lot to get Karen annoyed at him, but nabbering on about how terrible a plan this was the entire half-hour journey over to the shelter seemed to have done the trick.

"She probably won't even care."

Karen sent him one of her patented Did-You-Just- _Say_ -That? looks. He kept digging the hole.

"I'm serious. Look, right after law school I interned in CPS defense. I lasted, like, two months. You wouldn't believe the amount of parents out there who don't want to be parents. She left him when he was a baby, right? And then she didn't even go back for him when he was a _blind orphan_. We're talking Charles-Dickens-street-urchin levels of misfortune here. Sounds like she wasn't into the whole mom thing. And now we're just two complete strangers who are going to drop this bomb on her, and dredge up a bunch of emotional baggage, and -"

They stood in front of the large stone stoop of the church. Karen gripped her bag tightly around her shoulder. "You have no idea what their relationship was. That's all conjecture."

Despite himself, Foggy appreciated a good takedown. "Nice legal term."

She glanced at him. "Once upon a time, I was actually a secretary for a law firm."

"A secretary? Really? Must've been some real idiots not to promote you."

Karen looked back at the church. She was in Reporter Mode, not Laugh At Foggy's Dumb Jokes mode. "Are we doing this, or not?"

Foggy shrugged. "Lead the way, Miss Page."

In the shelter, the familiar smells of old wood and religion mixed oddly with antiseptic and sweat. The vast room was free of pews - instead, fold-out cots stretched across the floor, almost all of them occupied. A massive crucifix opposite the front entrance gazed over the nuns bustling to and fro.

Foggy stared at the crucifix. "Someone's having a bad time."

" _Foggy._ "

"What? Look at all that blood up there-"

A nun appeared, as if out of thin air. She looked young. "Can I help you? I'm afraid we're not able to take any more needy at this time, but I can refer you to -"

"No, no - we're not here for that," Karen said. "We wanted to talk to one of the nuns here. Sister Margaret."

"Murdock?" asked the nun.

Karen swallowed. "Yes."

"Sister Maggie is the head of this branch - she's very busy. May I ask why you wish to see her? Perhaps I can help in some way -"

"It's personal," Foggy interjected. "A family matter." _Well, someone else's family. Semantics, right?_

The nun blinked. "I see. I suppose . . . well, follow me." She snaked her way through the mattresses; Foggy and Karen tried to keep up.

"This place is packed," Karen said. "Is it always so busy?"

The young woman glanced back at them. "Even before the Incident, homeless shelters were crowded. Now, we're overwhelmed." She caught herself. "I mean - we're handling it, of course. The Lord has his plan."

Picking his way through the room, Foggy looked at the suffering around him. Captain 'America', that angry green lunatic, Matt wearing devil horns - if there was some ultimate plan for New York City, it was a pretty wacky one.

The nun knocked on an inauspicious door to the far left of the crucifix. A few seconds later it opened, and out came -

Seeing someone in person is always different than looking at their picture, isn't it? You can stare at old ink on newsprint or a bunch of bright pixels for however long you want, but you can't really capture someone's _personhood_ until they're right in front of you. The minute Maggie came out that door, any lingering doubts Foggy had about their little parentage theory vanished. Her eyes, her mouth, her way of carrying herself - this was Matt's mom. Undisputably.

Those two concepts - 'Matt' and 'mother' - didn't seem to fit together. Matt never had _parents_ , never seemed to need them - he was his own mysterious self-sustaining system. Yet here she was.

Foggy suddenly realized how this must look from her perspective - being gaped at by two total strangers.

"We're here about . . ." Foggy paused. What _where_ they here about, really?

"Matt," Karen finished. "Your son."

Maggie froze. She looked at Karen, then Foggy, then Karen again. "You'd better come inside."

The conversation didn't start until Maggie made three large cups of black tea (with generous proportions of milk and sugar) and set them out on a lovely looking tray in between a few chairs. Between that and the package of biscuits she went looking for, Foggy suspected the Irish in Maggie's lineage wasn't too distant.

There they sat, watching the steam rise from the cups. Foggy and Karen stole furtive glances at Maggie, rummaging through a cupboard - the woman they hadn't thought existed just a day or two ago.

She found half a pack of dark chocolate Digestives, and joined them at the table. Before either of them could ask any questions, she spoke.

"I know what you're thinking. 'What kind of a mother is she? What kind of a person abandons her own flesh and blood?"

In truth, that's not what they were thinking. Not Foggy, anyway. His mind was too busy dreading telling a nice old lady her long-lost son was dead. But Maggie seemed intent on this particular thread. She spoke softly, words almost drowned out by the array of noises coming from the shelter.

"After he was born . . . I can't explain it. It wasn't a sadness - not really. It was a void. An absence of all feeling. Nowadays they have a name for it. Maybe treatment. Back then it was just . . . shameful. I couldn't be a mother, so I left."

She stared down into her tea, lips pressed tight. "I always kept an eye on him, though. After Jack died, I made sure he was in the right hands." She looked up at Foggy, eyes burning with a familiar determination. "Life isn't always easy. I did the best I could. "

Foggy believed her. Sitting in that chair, hands cradling the large mug, she looked remarkably fragile - like a particularly strong breeze could snap her in two. The mother of the fearsome Devil of Hell's Kitchen: a barely-five-foot nun who spoke in a whisper and had a fondness for tea.

Somehow, it all made perfect sense.

"We understand," said Karen. Her voice mirrored Maggie's hush. Karen was always good at this sort of stuff - Foggy was more the type to nervously chuckle and make inopportune jokes. "We're not here to pass judgement. We just . . . wanted to give you some news. He - well, he - What exactly do you know about Matt?" She was testing the waters - no need to drop the whole bomb at once.

Maggie looked at her, and gave a faint smile. "Oh, yes. I know everything. Matthew is that . . . that vigilante fellow," she said. "He told me all about it."

Well, then.

Foggy choked on a large mouthful of tea. "You _knew_?"

"Yes, yes. I don't approve of violence," she said, voice becoming a little more stern, "but it seems like he's using his gifts to help people, and I can't argue with that."

Foggy noted the present tense with unease. "So you were . . . in contact? Throughout his life?" Not that it should be surprising - Matt had lied to him about nearly everything else - why not about his supposedly-dead mom? _Why am I still surprised every time he makes a fool out of me?_

"Oh, no - he didn't even know I was alive, I don't think," she said. "I could've found him any time, but he seemed to have done so well - I mean, a _lawyer_ , you know - that I didn't want to disturb him. I had no idea about everything else until he turned up at the shelter half-dead." She paused. "More than half, actually. Naturally, I asked questions, and the truth came out. It usually does."

Gradually, a picture was emerging. After one of Matt's many excursions had gone bad - could've been years back, with the amount of time he'd been vigilante-ing for - he'd somehow ended up here.

Karen seemed to have come to the same conclusion. She didn't have a notepad, but out of habit she was fidgeting with a pen in her right hand. "When was this?"

"That he came here? Oh, I'm not sure." She paused. "Maybe . . . six months ago? He only left a few weeks ago."

It was good tea. It was a shame Foggy was wasting so much of it with coughing fits.

"Last-" _cough_ " _Last_ -" _coughcough_

"Last month?" Karen said. "You're sure of this?'

"Of course," Maggie said. "It's not the sort of thing you'd forget, is it?"

"No way," Foggy said. Maggie and Karen both looked at him, Maggie confused, Karen with a _please-be-reasonable_ look. "No _fucking_ way."

Swearing in front of a nun was probably bad luck, but dammit, the situation called for some four-letter words.

"Excuse me?" Maggie said.

Karen's pen was twirling at a breakneck speed. "What he's trying to say is -"

Foggy stood up, head spinning, the taste of the biscuits mixing with tea, with the smell of wood, with sheer disbelief -

"He was _buried_ under _concrete._ I don't care what the hell his armour's made of. _Concrete._ It's been six months, _six months_ , I went to his church every single day, I - I -"

 _Why am I still surprised?_

"Foggy, sit down." Why was Karen always so damn _calm_? Had she always been like this? Or had New York gotten to her - the constant, unending stream of suspending disbelief, of accepting madness, of men with slick outfits and automatic rifles who think because they have muscles and half a brain, they're allowed to take the law into their own hands -

"I thought he was dead - I thought he was gone - I -"

Foggy closed his eyes. _Be zen. Deep breaths._

It didn't work.

"I'm going to _kill_ him."

Maggie sipped her tea. She looked faintly amused. "Matt said you were a feisty one, Mr. Nelson. He wasn't wrong."

She knew his name. They'd never introduced themselves, had they?

"He . . . told you about me?"

"Both of you. Foggy and Karen." She reached for the kettle, and topped up her mug. "He wouldn't stop talking about you."

Karen looked at her pen, then at Maggie. "It's just that. . . " She asked the obvious question that Foggy couldn't quite get past his lips. "Why didn't he let us know he was alive?"

Maggie shrugged. "He said he had work to do. That he wanted you to be safe. He wouldn't tell me anything else." She placed her mug on the table carefully. "I tried to stop him from leaving. We all did - he was a long way from healed. But the minute he could take a few steps, he vanished."

Karen bit her lip. "And you don't know where he went."

"No."

Foggy squinted suspiciously. Or, at least, he tried to. It looked more like he was about to sneeze. "Are you _sure_?"

She looked up at him sharply. "I don't lie, Mr. Nelson."

Foggy deflated. "I'm sorry. I just - I just don't know what's real anymore."

"I'm afraid I can't help you there." Maggie stood up. "I'm happy to have been the bearer of good news; but if you'll excuse me, I have quite a lot of work to attend to."

"Of course." They stood, and headed for the door. "Thank you for talking with us," Karen said. Foggy reached for the handle -

"Wait."

They turned. Maggie stood by her overloaded desk, staring at the floor. "If you find him -"

She sat down, piles of papers hiding her like a shield. "Tell him to take care."

Karen's smile took up approximately half her face; her calm facade had dropped the minute the church doors were behind them. She practically skipped down the sidewalk, voice a singsongy chant.

"He's alive! He's alive, he's alive, he's alive, he's alive, he's -"

"Shh! Tell it to the whole criminal underworld, why don't you -"

"Foggy, he's _alive_! I've dreamed about this, every night I've - Wait." She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. "Pinch me."

"You're not dreaming," Foggy said. "I might be, but you're not."

Without a word, she hugged him tightly, her hair pressed up against his face. It smelled of strawberry shampoo. He tried to reciprocate the best he could; he wasn't much of a hugger.

Her voice emerged, muffled by fabric: "He's alive."

"Yeah." Foggy mulled this over. He didn't feel happy, really. He didn't feel much of anything at all. It was like someone had turned his emotions on mute. Maybe this was what they called shock. "Yeah. He's alive."

He felt her shaking slightly. She was crying. She never cried.

"Hey, hey." Foggy looked at her. "Don't cry. This is good news, right?"

"It's just -" Karen unlatched herself, fanning her eyes - "I thought he was dead, and now he's not - he's just out there somewhere, all alone -"  
"I know, I know." They started walking again. "But he can take care of himself, right?" _Hah._ _Matt Murdock, take care of himself. As if._

"We need to find him."

"I know." He sighed. "Where do we even start? He could be anywhere. Could've left the city." He paused. This was Matt Murdock they were talking about. "OK, he probably didn't leave the city. But that's what, 9 million people?"

Karen gave him a sideways glance. "Well . . . I happen to know a P.I. who would be pretty interested in this case."

Foggy groaned. "You have _got_ to be kidding me."


End file.
